There were some sobering reports emanating from France today of Covid-19 infection rates increasing significantly. Dunkirk I read, has 901 cases per week of new infections per 100,000 people and Nice similarly hit, occasioning a couple of weekend lockdowns for the Riviera.
This feels reminiscent to me of past events here in the UK, in particular the ‘second wave’ which with the most recent lockdown has felt and been experienced as so damaging.
The UK is further on down the road than France in terms of vaccination rates and that will arguably be it’s saviour. by comparison. It is a sobering thought though regarding the amount of people still likely to be milling around for a little time yet, unvaccinated, accompanied by cries for more rapid easing of restrictions, (I’m as tired as anyone of them) regarding what potential this can feasibly have.
I recall an extremely popular view +around the end of the first lockdown was that ‘the country couldn’t be locked down again’, it was too expensive, too damaging etc. Respectfully, I didn’t agree with that point of view. Two lockdowns (and months of tiers which in effect were essentially lockdowns) later here we are.
Fatigued, impoverished, out of work, de-socialised, young people missing their education and myriad mental health problems (believe me, I hear those every single day and the faint-hearted would be slightly terrifed to hear them). None of this, desperate though it is, and it is, overrides the fact that if we do this easing too quickly we can still be back in a maelstrom of anxiety and uncertainty at very short order. Recent history has shown us that and we would do well to learn from it.
THE TEARS OF A CLOWN 